Not to conflate my opinion’s with shminux’s, but I feel like a set of these maps from different hotspots of activity could help provide greater balance to the more implicit parts of Less Wrong’s ethos. Consider the problem where those who visit Less Wrong for the first time conflate the above memes as what we consider a “rational” course of action; or consider how derivations of what’s rational might depend on a background knowledge in ways that are easy to miss (the kind of biases that “softer” sciences may attempt to track). It’s only possible to think what we have basis for in our memories, as per the availability heuristic. This could lead Less Wrong members to confuse the instrumental with the rational, similarly with the optimum and the rational.
It could also be possible to identify other potential “hotspots” for rationality communities if their culture follows a similar pattern. I imagine Minneapolis could be a city with such potential, for example, due to its youth population and tech firm presence.
I wonder how a similar map for, say, NYC and/or Boston would look like.
Or for anywhere outside the anglosphere. Europe had academic socialist movements in the 60s and 70s which might loom similarly large as the 60s counterculture does for the US West Coast.
Cool stuff. I wonder how a similar map for, say, NYC and/or Boston would look like.
Agreed. Or Oxford for that matter.
Not to conflate my opinion’s with shminux’s, but I feel like a set of these maps from different hotspots of activity could help provide greater balance to the more implicit parts of Less Wrong’s ethos. Consider the problem where those who visit Less Wrong for the first time conflate the above memes as what we consider a “rational” course of action; or consider how derivations of what’s rational might depend on a background knowledge in ways that are easy to miss (the kind of biases that “softer” sciences may attempt to track). It’s only possible to think what we have basis for in our memories, as per the availability heuristic. This could lead Less Wrong members to confuse the instrumental with the rational, similarly with the optimum and the rational.
It could also be possible to identify other potential “hotspots” for rationality communities if their culture follows a similar pattern. I imagine Minneapolis could be a city with such potential, for example, due to its youth population and tech firm presence.
Objectivists might show up stronger in a NYC map than a Bay Area one, for instance.
IME (which is admittedly about a decade out of date at this point), the Boston area as compared to the Bay Area is:
relatively lighter on the human potential improvement, environmentalism/whole-earth, alternative wellness fronts
more neo-Pagan than New Age in its spiritual flavor
relatively heavier on the computer science fronts
has a significant “actually, working for established companies to do worthwhile things is kind of cool too” component I don’t see represented here
That said, “relatively” is a key word. The Boston and Bay Areas are more like each other than either of them are like most of the rest of the country.
Or for anywhere outside the anglosphere. Europe had academic socialist movements in the 60s and 70s which might loom similarly large as the 60s counterculture does for the US West Coast.